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Wearing a poppy is, for some, a nice gesture. But if it's done mindlessly - poppies handed out on an armband as the players wait in the tunnel, just for show, just so they can be seen to be wearing one without the accompanying donation - it's essentially an empty gesture. As empty as the outrage over the ban.

The scandal enveloping FIFA should have come of no great surprise...Football fans and pundits have long known about slush funds and payola. But it was tolerated, a reason why Sepp Blatter has been elected its head five successive times.

This case is not just about criminal rehabilitation, it's about role models and about behaviour that role models encourage. This is a moment when the Football Association should step up and take greater responsibility for the case, rather than the unedifying spectacle of dragging the argument out from club to club - and failing on both rehabilitation and role models in the process.

Allegations have been made of millions of dollars of improper payments to Fifa officials who were involved in the process of voting for the winning bids. We are no closer today to knowing whether or not these allegations are true or false. Fifa has investigated itself and not surprisingly found itself to be not guilty.

So here we are again; downbeat, un-romanced and underwhelmed by our nation's football team... Shit at the Euros; Shit in World Cup Qualifiers, Shit at the World Cup. Uncle Roy needs to go, and he needs to go now.

The LMA now see themselves representing 92 league managers without a single black man among their ranks. Small wonder there are no openly gay professional footballers in England... You want to see discrimination eradicated in football? You want to make football a place for everyone? Don't stand by. Do your bit. Kick it out.

It's 2014 and there are still no openly LGBT people in English football. Not a manager, a player, nor even a physio. Other sporting organisations in the traditionally more conservative United States such as the NFL and the WWE and even Rugby Union and cricket here are streets ahead of 'the beautiful game' when it comes to equality.

The Premier League is the greatest league in the world. We hear it all the time and considering the calibre of the players, money spent by the teams and the unpredictability of the matches, it is easy to agree. However, this reputation could well be damaged or even destroyed, following Greg Dyke's new target set regarding English players.

England have as much chance of winning the World Cup as Nick Clegg has of winning the General Election. But why not improve those slender chances by bringing John Terry in from the cold. After another magisterial performance at the Bridge on Saturday, it takes a particularly perverse England manager to keep him out.

In a world saturated by political correctness, absolutely everything can be perceived as 'offensive', 'inappropriate' or 'unsafe' if people deliberately choose to see things in a certain way. Most acts of celebration in football remain perfectly innocent, whilst others are just subject to unreasonable rules...

I, of course, realised my ultimate dream in 1966. But this would not have been possible were it not for the volunteers who helped me play football when I was growing up and then later at my first club Chelmsford Boys, now known at Chelmsford City Youth FC.

Whatever the position of the FA, Tottenham Hotspur supporters remain defiant. Chants of "Yid army" and "we'll sing what we want" reverberated around White Hart Lane during the sides 2-0 win over Norwich on Saturday.

What's the League Cup called now? I lost track somewhere between the Coca-Cola and Milk Cup eras. As for the Europa, which would you prefer - top four in the league or a tricky second leg in Elfsborg? Come to think of it (Wigan), which would YOU prefer - FA Cup winners, or staying in the Premiership?

Similarly to FTSE companies, sports governing bodies have been given until 2017, to make sure at least a quarter of board members are women, or see their funding cut. An objective that is likely to be missed as currently only 15 meet this target.

On 30 June, the FA announced that Doncaster Belles had been unsuccessful in their appeal to remain in the Women's Super League (WSL). he appeal was made following the FA's decision back in April, after just one game of the current season, that Doncaster Belles would play in the second tier of the WSL when it expands to two divisions in 2014 .

The anticipation around the start of the 2013/2014 football season is already building with transfer rumours, managers coming and going and fans planning their away trips. But it's worth remembering that all of the football superstars, their fans and the hundreds of column inches dominated by the beautiful game owe thanks to the people at junior and youth football clubs who work hard to ensure that communities and young players have access to football. Without this army of volunteers, the game as we know it simply couldn't continue.

Belles will be replaced by Manchester City: a club with neither history nor pedigree in the women's game, but, as we all know, one with an awful lot of money. The implications for fans of smaller clubs everywhere are clear. Yet national media coverage has been modest so far.

There is so little to choose between the sports pages and financial pages, one would be forgiven for thinking that money's all that matters The media is culpable in this, but the FA, noble guardian of the game, is doing very little to disabuse us of that fact either.

Thing is, when Luis Suarez decided to bite Branislav Ivanovic, he wasn't exactly on my list of favourite footballers. Even before his impression of a petulant toddler that hasn't been allowed a biscuit, he was already a deplorable human being.

It was late October in 1863 when Ebenezer Cobb Morley and his contemporaries gathered together in London's Freemason's Tavern, near to where Holborn tube station is today, to establish a code of rules for the regulation of football. Fast forward to today and the modern game is unrecognisable from those humble beginnings. Its global audience has never been bigger with interest in the English game growing year-on-year. With this comes huge expectation, from fans, players, managers and the media...